Skywatcher Evostar 150 Achromatic.

[Bigwings]

Hi.

Looking at at a Skywatcher Evostar 150 . Blue tube with collimatable Cell.

Can anyone tell me when blue tubes changed to black.

I am a visual observer so what if anything do I gain adding this to my 127 Mak and 200p Newt?

Would I be pushing the limits of my EQ5 mount.

Never had a frac before so contemplating starting with a little one LOL. How much of a problem with CA is there likely to be. It has a Baader Fringe Killer filter.

Thanks for the advice.

Clear Skies

 

[John]

I've owned a few of the 150 F/8 achromats. The early ones were black and branded Helios but were otherwise the same. Celestron did a version, also in black. Skywatcher's first ones were blue with black fittings. A few years ago they moved to the current black sparkle with white fittings finish. In Europe and some other parts of the world they used a darker, non-metallic blue colour scheme. All the same scopes with the same performance. Some had a collimatable objective cell and some don't. Personally I prefer collimatable because I've had to collimate some of the ones that I've owned. The collimatable objective cell adds weight to the front end of the scope so they are a bit top heavy.

I'd not pay much for one of these today - I think I paid less than £200 for each of the ones I had. The CA is noticable but some folks don't seem to mind it. The filter will help reduce it by around 50%.

They are useable just about on an EQ5 mount if you have the 2 inch steel trube type tripod or a nice wooden one like a Berlebach. On the stock 1.5 or 1.75 inch EQ5 tripods the 150 F/8's will be prone fo vibrations at higher powers. Also you might want to consider a pillar extension to get the eyepiece up to a comfortable height - otherwise you might need to be seated at least very crouched when viewing anywhere near the zenith !

They are big heavy scopes - probably more hassle than your others to setup and take down so bear that in mind.